1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to military weaponry in general, and in particular, to accessory mounting devices for machine guns.
2. Related Art
One of the more effective infantry combat weapons deployed by the United States and allied forces during both this and the last century has been the Browning .50 caliber M2HB heavy machine gun. It has been shown to be effective against infantry, lightly armored land vehicles and boats, light fortifications, and low-flying aircraft, and has been used extensively both as a vehicle-mounted weapon and for aircraft armament by the United States from 1927 to the present. It was used extensively during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq. It is the primary heavy machine gun of NATO countries and has also been used by many other countries. It is still in use today, with some modern innovations and improvements, and has been in use longer than any other small arm currently in the U.S. inventory.
One of the improvements to the gun that users have found particularly advantageous has been the ability to use a variety of accessories with it, such as advanced gun sighting devices and lighting devices for better illuminating the gun's field of fire in dim or dark lighting conditions. The former includes, for example, telescopic, laser, infrared (IR) and so-called “starlight” night vision device (NVD) gun sights, and the latter includes, for example, powerful IR and/or white light spotlights that are able to reveal enemy activity and illuminate targets at great distances in twilight or night conditions, such as the SureFire HellFighter® gun spotlight, model nos. HF1A, HF1B, and HF1C, manufactured by SureFire, LLC, Fountain Valley, Calif.
As those of some skill in this art will appreciate, in order to integrate such accessories with a machine gun (e.g., a heavy machine gun or otherwise) successfully, it is necessary to provide mechanisms for mounting the accessories on the gun that are able to withstand the rigors of adverse battlefield environmental conditions as well as the extremes of shock and vibration of the gun when fired. Over the years, a number of gun accessory mounts have been developed, examples of which can be found in the patent literature, including, e.g., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,155 to D. Primeau, IV; U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,508,027, 6,655,069, and 6,779,288 to P. Kim; and, U.S. Pat. No. 6,895,708 to P. Kim et al.
While these previous gun accessory mounts address some of the above accessory-to-gun integration issues to some extent, they are not without certain drawbacks when applied to machine guns such as the M2HB, including that some cannot be used with guns having ballistic shields, some have clamping lugs that do not accommodate the various gun shroud hole patterns found in different models of machine guns without some modification of the shroud and/or the lugs, some cannot be used with guns that incorporate a quick change barrel (QCB), and some locate a spotlight accessory at a position relative to the barrel of the gun such that extensive firing of the gun can result in the gunner's view of the field of fire being obscured by a “whiteout” effect.
Accordingly, what is needed is a more “universal” machine gun accessory mount that is light in weight, yet sufficiently robust to withstand adverse environmental conditions and the shock and vibrations of the gun during firing, and which is also capable of reliably mounting a variety of accessories on virtually any model of machine gun in use today, regardless of the gun's shroud hole pattern or diameter and whether or not it incorporates a ballistic shield or a QCB.